My cousin owns this and we played coop many years ago. I was the high elf cleric but I don’t recall if we beat the game or not. Now I took his old copy and attempted to beat it solo. I got as far as the greater faydark area before the game bugged out to be unplayable. Seemed like the disc was scratched, though I did read something about it not working properly on some versions of PS2. Whatever, I put a PS2 emulator on my gaming PC and beat the rom on all 3 difficulties. Being able to save state scum was a huge bonus as this game was very difficult due to how hard enemies hit, and how potions healed slowly over time. The emulator had framerate issues, especially in areas with particle effects, so I played zoomed in to the max to try and keep the speed half decent.

Most of the 1st difficulty was easy enough to rely on passive hp regen, apart from a few hard boss spikes. The core combat was engaging, especially with blocking preventing damage from the front. Some enemies were best killed quickly while others were better with timed blocks. Multiple enemies at once changed the dynamic even more as I had to balance out burning enemies down quickly to avoid getting flanked. Every battle was slightly different. I put my starting points into blunt damage because I knew it would be used for the entire game and was not quite sure what skills to focus on. I tried out shield bash and was not impressed. Healing cost way too much mana for too little hp, but still could be useful if I ran out of healing potions during a boss fight. Hammer of wrath created an invulnerable pet to fight alongside me and was absolutely amazing. It could not attack while I was blocking but many enemies and bosses were easily killed by it. The 2nd difficulty was very difficult and I started having to buy healing portions. I maxed out blunt damage, holy strike and the hammer. The homing ranged attack was quite useful and it sometimes knocked enemies down. Once I had those maxed and had extra points left over, I looked into what other skills I wanted. I needed help surviving bosses and groups of enemies. Holy armor split a % of damage to mana, so it worked like Diablo mana shield. It nearly doubled my health pool and allowed me to use both potion types to heal, which came in handy with the slow rate of potion regen. It helped immensely during boss fights but I did not use it much for regular fights. It did help with multiple enemies but drained mana quickly, but then again I ended up selling most of my mana potions. Too bad it had a short duration instead of being a toggle. After maxing that I did root to help crowd control. It was the best skill by far, stopping multiple enemies per cast who would often forget to attack. I also considered convert enemy but it only worked on limited types of foes, so not a good choice. Blinding flash capped at 50% chance to blind while root went up to 90% at max. I did not see the point of using any other skills so I left the rest of my skill points unspent. Maybe healing or blessed at max would be useful in certain circumstances but I did well enough with potions.

Act 1 was simple enough. The goblins and orcs showcased the core combat well, though the shamen that could revive were annoying, especially on 1st playthrough when I did not have much beyond melee attacks. The bears hit too hard and often staggered me, so I relied on my pet to kill them. The spiders were easy because they never blocked and were spread out. Then the orc chief boss was a huge difficulty spike all 3 times. 1st time I died several times because of the damage, range and stagger on his polearm. I had to be aggressive while chugging potions since his defense was low. For both higher difficulties I kited him while letting the pet do all the work. The giant spider boss was trivial because it was so easy to get behind it to avoid all damage.

The ants of act 2 were similar to the spiders but came in larger numbers. The queen was one of the, if not the, hardest parts of the game. She could kill me in 2 or 3 hits, turned too fast to get behind her, and moved too fast to kite. It was doable to melee her on the 1st difficulty while the 2nd time was extremely difficult, taking many attempts. I had to hide in an alcove and spam holy armor to kill the adds 1 by 1, then let my pet kill the queen as I hid away. 3rd time was not as hard as I got the queen stuck and rooted the adds. Then to the lava cave where the biggest threat was being knocked into the lava by the golems. Some of them had to be shot a few times before they would move into melee range. Then came the undead. The Resident Evil lickers were tricky bastards that hit hard, while skeletons were slow and very easy defeat. There was a big fight against a lot of skeletons followed by a knight, all of which were easily defeated with my pet. I was almost tempted into rewatching the cutscenes with the dark elf vampiress due to the sheer amount of sex appeal. God damn if only this game was on PC with nude patches. There was a huge difficulty spike when being dropped into a pit with a ton of minion vampires. They were fast dodgy little shits that were difficult to dispatch in melee, and there were way too many at once. 1st time was no problem and 3rd was easy with root, but that 2nd time took a lot of deaths before I made it to a corner to turtle. The vampire lord was considerably easier, though he kept knocking me down the 3rd time so I let the pet weaken him until he lost his sword.

Act 3 was the most inconsistent in challenge, most diverse in locations, and my least favorite act. The beach areas were not difficult, if unnecessarily large. Then going underwater for trivial skeletons, which killed the framerate. Then the desert area was among the most difficult in the game. The scimitar desert guys moved too fast to kite and hit very hard, combined with mages that could nuke and revive. I should have used fire resist gear here because it took a lot of save state scumming to make it on all but the 1st time. This continued in the temples only the mages changed to earth and ice. The giants in the grass area could kill me in a single hit, but they turned slowly enough to stay behind them while my pet did most of the damage. Then the mummy boss was a moderate challenge because he kept summoning a scimitar guy and mage. He was trivial the 3rd time because I rooted those adds and wasted him in melee. Then the cloud temple with all those dark elves was not too bad. I remember the most annoying enemy type in the game was red aura archers that knocked me down with each shot. Any race with archers could be like that and they were incredibly difficult to defeat in melee, so I used holy strike to beat them at ranged. The cloud giants were worse than the previous ones because they turned faster and had an area stomp that seemed to reduce hp by a large %. Without save states I probably would have kept my distance and nuked them. The cloud giant boss was a joke though; just got behind him and was never touched. The ice area was a challenge only on 3rd difficulty due to the walrus ice mages; should have used frost resist gear. Then the underwater end boss was another easy joke that was easily killed with pet and blocking.

Act 4 was oddly short and the end boss was not actually at the end. The dark elves were not much trouble but the insect tentacle abominations were a different story. They were unpredictable, capable of doing a ranged spit, fast charge or unblockable flurry. I had to kite them to let my pet kill them, except for the 3rd time with sweet root. Then was the arena fight, which was not too difficult with kiting. The boss beast was very deadly though because of his movement speed and annoying ability to knockdown with contact. This fight was about keeping holy shield up, chugging both kinds of potions, running away and getting in whatever damage I could. In other words, a huge mess.

The final act was another short one with plenty more sex appeal; the merchant lady in the plane of air and the blonde Firiona. Nice of the game to reward me so much for returning to town to sell junk. The enemies were among the most difficult in the game; both the fire knights and satyr things being big on blocking and knockbacks. The archer demon boss was easy with blockable attacks, then the silly escorting souls sequence where the enemies foolishly went after them instead of me. I grinded this area several times on 1st difficulty to gain a couple levels to use better gear for the final boss. I again grinded it once the 3rd time as I was just a little shy of level 46; this was when I finally decided to switch my strength jewelry for fire resist. Something I should have been doing the entire difficulty and the previous. Then came the final boss who could kill me in a single hit on 1st difficulty. That was why I changed from putting 2 points into strength 1 into stamina each level up, to putting everything into stamina. At least the next 2 times I could take a hit. I think his ranged attack was fire so I put on fire resist. The strategy was to hide behind the pillars while my pet whacked away until he dropped his sledgehammer, then holy armor up and charge in.

This was a solid game but not nearly as good as classic Diablo and Diablo 2. It had the enemies move in similar silly circular motions like in Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, so it was not hard to tell the games were made by the same studio. It was less annoying in this game and I could even use it to trick enemies into not attacking me. The combat was mostly fun, the setting and story were good, and the console controls were workable. I would have preferred mouse aim and having more than 2 skill hotkeys though. The biggest flaw was probably the enemy and boss balance, because it was not at all a linear progression of difficulty. The loot was more complicated than it needed to be. Though the magic bonuses were simple enough, there were too many base item types with seemingly inconsistent armor and damage values. It was nearly impossible to know how good an item would be just from the name, and most of the stuff I found was garbage. Some of my gear was found while just as much was bought from the store. I enchanted my gear just before the 1st final boss because I wanted every possible edge. Then I put speed on a titan hammer that I used through most of the 2nd and 3rd playthroughs. I didn't bother to enchant my armor at the end, and certainly did not need any help.

8.2/10

I made a shadow knight and wizard to try the beginning area. The SK seems like it would be very similar to the cleric, with a mix of melee, magic and pet. I do wonder if the skeleton pet will be invulnerable like the hammer and what other skills I would invest in. The wizard and ranger would be interesting as more distance focused characters, but I imagine that would be tough while zoomed in so much. The barbarian would likely be the least interesting character. Definitely plan to play again as a different class at some point.

End gear:

Yellow redwood wand: level 39, 139 to 151 damage, 145 attack, enchanted with; godly speed, 32 to 42 lightning damage, 16% critical

Blue well built crested shield of the rhino: level 29, 80 armor, +38 stamina

Yellow breastplate of the void: level 27, 92 armor, +10% magic resist

Yellow templar leggings: level 27, 90 armor, +20 mana, +15 int

Yellow true helm: level 19, 62 armor, +15 mana, +15 int, enchanted with +25 stamina

Yellow gauntlets of the void: level 27, 92 armor, +10% magic resist

Blue rugged chain boots of intellect: level 23, 78 armor, +12 int

Jewelry includes full sets of max +str, +stamina, mana regen and every resistance. Also have level 49 and 50 yellow pants, and level 50 yellow boots.